IBM Introduces New Software to Accelerate Workload Movement to System z; Reduces IT Costs

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ARMONK, N.Y.
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19 Nov 2009:
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced 10 new software products to help companies lower application management costs by optimizing the System z mainframe for more workloads, such as data analytics, collaborative application development, application maintenance and other key business processes.

Given System z's ability to reduce costs through server consolidation, IBM and the industry have aggressively extended the breadth of new workloads for the mainframe via 3,800 z/OS-based and 3,000 Linux-based applications. The unique ability of the mainframe to host many application services on one system has helped System z achieve one of the industry's lowest application costs per user. Minimal application costs are important for companies which rely on multiple applications to run their business.

The new products span IBM's software portfolio to provide a range of benefits for System z customers. The benefits include optimal application connectivity, productivity, security and data management.

IMS 11 provides direct SQL access to IMS data from any distributed platform. This simplifies and speeds the process of connecting applications and data, while also enabling easier data replication and change capture processes. Enhanced Java support expands the number of developers available to support IMS applications and business services.

New products from WebSphere to enhance business process management, connectivity and integration including: WebSphere Process Server for z/OS V7, IBM WebSphere ILOG Business Rule Management Systems, WebSphere MQ for z/OS V7.0.1, WebSphere Message Broker for z/OS V7.0, and IBM Problem Determination Tools V10. These products are designed to help clients discover insights that enable innovation, maximize the value of business interactions, and optimize productivity and resources. For a full list and description of the new WebSphere products visit: www.ibm.com/smartwork/businessagility

To help clients cut application maintenance costs, IBM offers:

IBM Rational Developer for System z version 7.6 provides a modern GUI development environment, to increase developer productivity and lower the costs associated with maintaining and building multi-platform applications. The new offering helps attract next-generation workers, consolidates multi-language development into a single environment and dramatically reduces CPU usage of up to 50 percent, minimizing budget expenditures.

IBM Rational Team Concert for System z version 2.0 uses a new common repository to help teams to work together, share assets, automate processes and deliver software faster. The software expedites response times and cuts costs by consolidating disparate development team infrastructures and automating software development across multiple platforms, which is important for tiered applications.

An enhanced set of IBM Rational Compilers for C/C++, COBOL and PL/I reduce application MIP requirements, while increasing developer productivity and reducing both capital expense and overall development costs.

Tivoli Asset Discovery for z/OS removes unused and obsolete software and helps determine software usage to plan effectively for the future and to run smarter systems.

IBM Tivoli NetView for z/OS 5.4 improves network and automation control for data centers and change management. It provides an understanding of how network availability and events impact the business, helping customers deliver smarter, more automated systems.

Telcordia, Sodifrance and HVB Unicredit are among the companies worldwide already benefiting from the long-term economics of the System z platform.

"Telcordia's data systems are designed to provide consistently high throughput all the time. Each system averages five million transactions per day, supporting an average of 250 gigabytes of active data," said Paul Gandolfo, a senior technical specialist in application development and performance at Telcordia. "Our customers bet their businesses on the services we provide, and we bet our service performance and reliability on IBM's Information Management System. Downtime is not an option."

"Building an agile development team requires a multiplatform approach and Sodifrance uses Rational Developer for System z and Rational Team Concert for System z to help application teams synchronize their efforts and improve collaboration," said Hugh Smith, project manager of Sodifrance. "Rational on System z offers a powerful and valuable combination for any company that wants to boost its development team's productivity."

"Programmers that are using Rational Developer for System z have found that development is more comfortable than with our existing set of development tools," says Almut Geiger of HVB Unicredit. "Debugging in particular is much faster. Features like syntax checking, content assist, multiple views and error identification make development easier. For example, when there were coding errors before, a developer had to find the correct line number in the code and then try to determine what was wrong with the code. Now they just click on an icon, and they are led directly to the position of the error. It takes people some time to get familiar with a new environment, but when they become familiar with Rational Developer for System z, we are seeing an estimated 15 percent increase in development efficiency and a 10 percent increase in testing efficiency."